Robert R. George, MSgt, USAF, CPhT

by
PTCB | Sep 07, 2017

“About 8 years ago, I was working as a pharmacy technician while performing a special duty assignment as Basic Military Training Instructor. At the time, I was pulling a night shift called CQ or Charge of Quarters. I was the only instructor at the training building and was responsible for 800 new recruits or 'trainees'. They were all supposed to be asleep, but two trainees came downstairs to talk to me about one of them being sick. My initial instinct was to send them back upstairs to bed. But something kicked in when I looked again at the trainee who was sick, something I’d felt before: Intuition.

Intuition is something you are born with. It’s ‘that feeling’ you get inside when something does not seem right. Couple that feeling with being taught attention to detail as a pharmacy technician, along with experience working directly with patients who are feeling at their worst, and you have a decent combination to help somebody in need. I called 911 to get an ambulance over to my building right away.

A few hours later, I was notified that the trainee was in a coma and had pneumonia in both lungs. The ER doctor told me that if I’d sent him back upstairs to bed, or followed the protocol to get a nurse's hotline diagnosis, the trainee would have died.

I truly believe that if I was not trained and supervised by pharmacy professionals, and held to high standards and expectations, I may not have noticed the situation for what it was: no longer a trainee asking to go to sick call, but a patient asking for help.”